Tamale Poly students demonstrate over encroachment

Some irate students of the Tamale Polytechnic, on Saturday embarked on street demonstration, demanding from the Chief of Choggu who they claimed had encroached on the polytechnic’s land, to desist from developing it, stressing that such practice was an affront to the development of the school.

The demonstrators who took off from the school’s campus, passed through various principal streets of the Tamale Metropolis with placards, some of whose inscriptions read; “Our land, our future”, “Oooo Chief, why take T.poly Land, “TAMA, we want our land”, “Our land for palace, na lie”, and “We no go gree, this one be too much,” amidst drumming and dancing.

The President of the Student’s Representative Council, Adam Iddrisu Baba, presented separate petitions to the Sagnarigu District Chief Executive Alhaji Sorugudoo and Gulkpe Naa Alhassan Abdula, pleading with them to intervene in the matter.

He urged them to employ all legal means to stop and prevent the Choggu Naa and others who have planned to construct a palace on the land, noting that encroachers in the past had significantly reduced the land size of the school, making future expansion difficult.

“We the SRC thought the Chiefs and people of our dear land should have been those protecting the lands of the Polytechnic for future generations to benefit. Unfortunately, they are those working very hard to reclaim those lands that were acquired some years before their enskinment”, he said.

He said the authorities of the Polytechnic had done its possible best to reclaim the land, and that it was time the student body joined hands with management and other stakeholders to stop the encroachment.

Mr. Sorugudoo assured the students to remain calm, stressing that the country was governed by the rule of law and would meet the traditional authorities to resolve the matter.

Mohammed Rashad Abdulai, Secretary to the Gulkpe Naa, who received the petition on behalf of the Chief, promised that he would not hesitate to take any drastic action against any chief who encroached on the Polytechnic’s land.